OyChicago blog

Back in 2002, a dude named
Adam Weitz
wrote a jokey list titled "Films about Tough Jews." The list, in its entirety, was:

The Ten Commandments
Casino

Hardy-har-har. Well, I just found that list this year, and I'm retroactively ticked off about it. There are a whole lot more movies about tough Jews than that. For the purposes of this list, we're going to keep it to Jews who show physical toughness, not just mental or emotional grit.

Movies about such tough Jews include the one about
Bugsy
Siegel and the one about Meyer
Lansky. Jewish mobsters
Moe Green
(based on Siegel) and
Hyman Roth
(based on Lansky) appear in the
Godfather
films, too. A Jewish mobster movie that aims at the epic proportions of
The Godfather
is
Once Upon a Time in America.

Jewish gangsters are even mentioned in the theme song to an
Elvis movie. In "Jailhouse Rock," which imagines "the whole cell block" busting into song and "the rhythm section" was composed of "the
Purple Gang."

The idea of "tough Jews" must include athletes, and they have been depicted on screen as well. There are boxers from
Daniel Mendoza
(back in the 1700s! No movie yet …) to
Barney Ross
and
Max Baer
(unfairly maligned in
Cinderella Man). The Israeli victims of the
Munich
Olympics massacre included three weightlifters and two wrestlers. Speaking of the Olympics, Chariots of Fire
features a Jewish athlete tough enough to compete in a race he didn't even train for … and, in a way, Ben-Hur becomes an athlete to compete in
that famous chariot race.

Then there are the "tough Jews" who are soldiers and rebels. There are some movies about the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising
and other movies about
Defiance
against the Nazis. There are several about the early days of Israel, including the
Exodus
from Nazi Europe and the American Jewish general who
Cast a Giant Shadow
over the founding of the Jewish State. There are even two about
Operation Thunderbolt, in which Israeli soldiers achieved
Victory at Entebbe
over terrorist hijackers in Uganda.

Protecting the home front, Jewish police officers have appeared onscreen as well. Liev Schreiber plays a Chasidic cop on
Fading Gigolo, Melanie Griffith goes undercover in a Chasidic community in
A Stranger Among Us, and Andy Garcia investigates an anti-Semitic murder in
Homicide
(There is still room for a Jewish firefighter movie…).

It's harder to find Jewish characters in science-fiction, superhero and fantasy movies, but they are out there. While his heritage is not as well-known as his origin, Ben Grimm, a.k.a. The Thing -- a member of the Fantastic Four -- is Jewish. And I challenge you to find a tougher Jew than one who can
stop a semi
with his literally rock-solid shoulder.

Tough Jews -- in the heat of competition and on both sides of the law -- have been depicted
time
and
time
(and time) again in the movies. So if you want me to keep listing them, well, as the superhero says,
"I could do this all day."

(OK, so Captain America, while he was dreamt up by Jewish artists, isn't Jewish himself. But he did do
this.)

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